Has Timothée Chalamet completely blown up his Oscars bid?
Go back a few weeks, and it felt like Timothée Chalamet was a shoo-in for the ‘Best Actor’ award at the upcoming 2026 Oscars.
There was something exciting about it, watching a race where one of the runners so clearly and loudly wanted it badly, and then it became depressing watching them completely collapse over a hurdle of their own idiocy.
There has been absolutely no mistake that this year has seen Chalamet absolutely gunning for the top. There was even something so beautifully meta about the whole thing, with the actor just as laser-focused as his character in Marty Supreme. From as early as 2018, Josh Safdie and Chalamet were discussing the project, and from the moment it was floated as a prospect, the star locked in, quietly prepping in the background as he genuinely trained to become a master table tennis player.
Onscreen, it all pays off as Chalamet disappears inside Marty Mouser, likely due to the remarkable amount of time he’d spent studying the life of the character’s inspiration, Marty Reisman, embedding himself in the world of the sport, and, perhaps most crucially, flying forward in his own drive.
Let’s plot the timeline: If Safdie first spoke to Chalamet about the idea in 2018, that means the character has been mulling around the actor’s mind through countless wins and losses. 2018 was the year he received his first ‘Best Actor’ nomination for Call Me By Your Name, a moment that undoubtedly set his mission into focus as the then-22-year old couldn’t hide the awe from his face when the nominees were read out, or the tinge of disappointment when he lost out.
The same look spread across his face in 2025 when he lost out again for A Complete Unknown, another movie that involved years of preparation. Add on top of that, with reverence for his roles in projects like Bones and All, Beautiful Boy and Dune mounting, chances are the voice of Mouser was growing louder in the actor, pushing him deeper into the frantic desire to win.
“I’m really in pursuit of greatness,” the actor said in 2025, admitting later that the moment was influenced by the Mouser mindset of dreaming big.
All of that has led to a 2026 Oscars bid that split the public. The cynics wanted to watch the young striver fail, and the hopeful were enamoured by his openness and his desire for the win. For me, I was backing him, truly keeping my fingers crossed to see a moment where Hollywood’s new generation would break through and get that top crown. I wanted to see it all come to fruition for the actor who has put in a seriously great run of performances since his breakout.
Then, one ill-thought-out comment about ballet led to a nightmarishly timed controversy.
In a well-meaning conversation with Matthew McConaughey about the need to protect cinemas and preserve movies in the age of AI, Chalamet brought up an insulting analogy, stating, “I don’t want to be working in ballet, or opera, or things where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive, even though like no one cares about this anymore’.”
The actor clearly quickly realised he’d messed up as he instantly added, “All respect to all the ballet and opera people out there,” but for many people, it was too late.
In an instant, it felt as though Chalamet’s standing in the public eye had changed, almost like the final step in his transformation into Mauser. Just as the film has the audience supporting the character up to a certain point, this moment seemed to mark that same shift. Before, the actor’s ambition had felt admirable. He was walking a fine line, still landing on the side of determination and drive. But now the balance had tipped, and everyone knows there is nothing less appealing than arrogance.
The comment was too bro-ish, dripping with disrespect for art forms overwhelmingly deemed as feminine. It also smacked of personal disregard as Chalamet comes from a long line of ballet dancers in New York, with both his mother and grandmother being professionals.
“I was always backstage at the New York City Ballet,” he’d said earlier in his campaign, adding, “My grandma worked at the New York City Ballet, my mother worked at the New York City Ballet, and my sister danced there, so I grew up dreaming big backstage at the Koch theatre in New York, you know. I had to dream big.”
So why the strange turn? Maybe it was just a misplaced, thoughtless comment, but either way, that split second fuck up tainted Chalament’s ‘dream big’ moment into one that stamped on others on the way to the top, with even Jamie Lee Curtis chiming in, “Why are any artists taking shots at any other artists?”
As always, the Oscars race is delicate and heavily shaped by the news cycle. At the same time that Chalamet’s moment caused backlash, Michael B Jordan has been receiving a very different kind of attention. After responding with grace to an unfortunate incident at the Baftas, where a racial slur was shouted at him on stage by Tourette’s syndrome activist John Davidson, Jordan became the focus of online discussion for his composure. Since then, the betting odds for ‘Best Actor’ have shifted significantly, now placing him in first place for Sinners, ahead of both Chalamet and Leonardo DiCaprio.
It’s all so fickle, though. If we want to start considering how public opinion comes into the matter, it should be noted that Jordan, for the last two years, has remained a loud and proud supporter of convicted abuser Johnathan Majors, who is currently serving a prison sentence for abusing his ex-girlfriend.
Despite that, he quite happily and publicly declared only a few months ago he’s “proud” of the man, saying, “I’m glad he’s good.” Adding, “That’s my boy”, with a resounding “yes” to the question of whether he’d work with him again. As far as poor opinions go, that’s utterly condemnable.
But rather than trading scandal for scandal, it’s worth keeping some perspective. Chalamet’s comment was undeniably foolish and may well have damaged his awards campaign, but it hardly defines him. At the end of the day, he remains one of the most exciting actors of his generation, and his impassioned speech about wanting to reach the very top suggests that even a setback this year will only push him to keep striving forward.
Although maybe on the next attempt, he’ll pack up some of that Marty Mauser arrogance.
